Symmetric U(1) and Z2 spin liquids on the pyrochlore lattice

Abstract

The geometrically frustrated 3D pyrochlore lattice has been long predicted to host a quantum spin liquid, an intrinsic long-range entangled state with fractionalized excitations. To date, most proposals for pyrochlore materials have focused on quantum spin ice, a $\mathrm{U(1)}$ quantum spin liquid whose only low energy excitations are emergent photons of Maxwell type. In this work, we explore the possibility of finding pyrochlore quantum spin liquids whose low energy theories go beyond this standard one. We give a complete classification of symmetric $\mathrm{U(1)}$ and $\mathbb{Z}_2$ spin liquids on the pyrochlore lattice within the projective symmetry group framework for fermionic spinons. We find 18 $\mathrm{U(1)}$ spin liquids and 28 $\mathbb{Z}_2$ spin liquids that preserve pyrochlore space group symmetry while, upon further imposing time reversal symmetry, the numbers of classes become 16 and 48, respectively. For each class, the most general symmetry-allowed spinon mean-field Hamiltonian is given. Interestingly, we find that several $\mathrm{U(1)}$ spin liquid classes possess an unusual gapless multi-nodal-line structure ("nodal star") in the spinon bands, which is protected by the projective actions of the three-fold rotation and screw symmetries of the pyrochlore space group. Through a simple model, we study the effect of gauge fluctuations on such a nodal star spin liquid and propose that the leading terms in the low temperature specific heat have the scaling form $C/T\sim \sqrt{T}+\sqrt{T}/\ln T$, in contrast to the form $C/T \sim T^2$ of the standard $\mathrm{U(1)}$ pyrochlore spin liquid with gapped spinons.